All great masters are chiefly distinguished by the power of adding a second, a third, and perhaps a fourth step in a continuous line. Many a man has taken the first step. With every additional step you enhance immensely the value of your first.
Interpretation
Success is achieved through perseverance and continual effort beyond the initial attempt.
Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote emphasizes the importance of commitment and persistence in the journey towards mastery and success. Taking the first step is commendable, but true greatness comes from the willingness to continue onward and build upon that initial achievement. Each subsequent step taken not only strengthens the foundation of success but also adds significant value to our endeavors, reinforcing the idea that the road to mastery is paved with continuous effort and growth.
In practice
In a motivational speech to students about the importance of hard work.
It is plain that there is no separate essence called courage, no cup or cell in the brain, no vessel in the heart containing drops or atoms that make or give this virtue; but it is the right or healthy state of every man, when he is free to do that which is constitutional to him to do.
Few people have any next, they live from hand to mouth without a plan, and are always at the end of their line.
Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations
Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss: in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakeably meant for his ear.
The world belongs to the energetic.
Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
It's heavy duty to try to do everything and please everybody . . . My job was to go out there and play the game of basketball as best I can, ... People may not agree with that . . . I can't live with what everyone's impression of what I should or what I shouldn't do.
If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough.
You are merely not feeling equal to the tasks before you.
My parents said to us, practically on a daily basis, that we were as good as anyone else on this earth, and that we would simply have to work harder in order to show that.
Getting out of bed is like the foundation of the discipline, and I think it carries over into everything else.
I decide my future. I decide what I want to do. Nobody else. If I decide this will be my last year, maybe it is. If I decide it will be my last contract, I decide that. Nobody else. So I will decide when the moment is there.
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